Howard Goldstein

Howard Goldstein talks about what it was like for him to reveal his sexual identity to his parents during a time when the country was in turmoil over the emerging gay rights moment.

One of the biggest issues in a gay man or gay woman’s life is coming out to one’s self. And there’s a lot of repression centered around that because it’s not as if you open up the newspaper and say – “Hooray! Fred came out to himself today! Isn’t that wonderful?” There’s no celebration in that respect, no opening like a quinceañera that a Spanish girl has at age 15. There is no coming out ceremony with balloons and cake and parties. It can be a very painful experience.

I can remember I was coming out in the 70’s and this was when Anita Bryant was popular on television for advertising orange juice, Florida orange juice. She was a former Miss Oklahama. And the orange juice company latched onto her. And then she started some kind of tirade against homosexuals. And she became extremely vocal about that. And it kind of polarized the country, I would think. There was them and then there was us. And you were for us or against us.

It put me in a very uncomfortable position, especially with my parents, because here they are hearing all this news and I am getting ready to come out to them. In fact, I was in therapy so I would be prepared.

But I weathered that storm and she lost her job as a representative for the Florida orange juice industry and became infamous for that.

Desperate people do desperate things. And I think the same has happened in many civil rights movements, and certainly the gay movement is like that where finally people in New York rose up against police in the Stonewall Uprising. And we do have demonstrations, and now there is this huge push in the country for gay marriage. Good for us!